People Before Adam Did Not Have the Image of God

Examining the Options on When Adam Lived David Snoke, University of Pittsburgh December, 2012 In this paper, I assume that Adam was one, real man who was the federal head of the human race, in agreement with Romans 5. My aim is then to ask when Adam lived, and who his progeny were, in the context both of Scripture and modern science. I do not assume that present theories of science are sacrosanct, but will refer to theories which have much stronger evidential support than others which may put pressure on our views. The first question one must address is whether Adam was the first human that ever lived. The standard answer in church history is yes, but there are actually no direct biblical statements to this effect. If we say that he was not, but was still the federal head of the human race, we must choose among several other options which relate to that. We will discuss this option in Section II. For now, we examine the issues involved with taking Adam as the first human that ever lived. Option I. Adam was the first human This option does not preclude that other species of human‐like creatures existed before Adam. In particular, there is strong evidence that Neanderthals were a separate species from modern humans.1 Neanderthals are believed to have hunted with pointed sticks and used fire, but probably did not have language, although this has been debated.2 They thus might resemble fairly closely the “orcs” (goblins) of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings stories, and—who knows?—perhaps our tales of goblins are corporate memory of an earlier time when Neanderthals walked the earth along with humans and warred with them. Modern archaeology indicates that humans coexisted with Neanderthals and may have killed them off. There is also evidence that humans mated with Neanderthals, but that does not imply they were one species; cross breeding among different species can occur. Besides the Neanderthals, one could argue that even hominids that looked like modern humans were actually non‐human, another species, due to some differences not preserved in the fossil record. Although the Bible does not directly state that Adam was the first human who ever lived, there are verses which support this view. One obvious argument is simply that Adam is the first human we encounter by name in the Bible. But the possibility of a prehistory not told in the Bible is not ruled out; we know, for example, that Satan and the angels preceded Adam and Eve but learn nothing of the lives and wars of angels in the first chapters of Genesis; Satan simply appears on the scene (like Cain’s wife, a person we will discuss at 1 See H. Ross and F. Rana, Who was Adam? (Navpress, 2005). 2 A. Gauger, “Science and Adam and Eve,” (in press) lists arguments that Neanderthals shared many attributes with modern humans, and if cleaned up could not be distinguished from a modern human. length below). We only find out later in the Bible, indirectly, that there were whole wars of angels.3 Other texts in support of Adam as the first human are the marriage precedent in Genesis 2:24, which seems to indicate that Adam and Even are the founders of all marriage, and the name Adam gives to Eve in Genesis 3:20, “the mother of all living.” Genesis 2:5 also says “there was no man” in the “land”4 before Adam was created. There are alternative explanations for these passages, as discussed below, but it is certainly natural to take them in reference to Adam and Eve as the first humans. On the other hand, this view also creates interpretive difficulties with some other passages. An obvious one which has confronted generations of students is that there are apparently two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. A natural reading is to see Genesis 1 and 2 as sequential, since there is no direct indication that Genesis 2 is going back in time, and detailed returns to previous stories are not common in the Old Testament. The most common resolution of this is to take Genesis 2 as a return to Day 6 of the story of Genesis 1, with a more detailed focus on the story of Adam and Eve. There is nothing in the Hebrew grammar to indicate this, but also nothing that directly contradicts it. Furthermore, the beginning of Genesis 5 connects the Adam of Genesis 2 with the creation passage of Genesis 1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. (Gen 5:1‐3) Here, the wording is almost identical to that of Gen 1:26‐27, but the person in view is clearly the man of Genesis 2‐4 who had Seth as a son. A more serious problem for this option is raised by asking where Cain got his wife, and who he was afraid of, in Genesis 4. The standard answer is that Cain married one of his sisters, and he was afraid of future children of Adam and Eve. Both of these answers are problematic. The problem of incest could be solved by supposing that there was an exception for the first generation, but in Leviticus 18:11, 24‐25 the Lord says that such things disgust him, and that the land vomits out people who do such things: did God’s 3 Revelation 12:7‐9. It can be argued, however, that this passage refers to a defeat of Satan and his armies after the incarnation and ascension of Christ, since these are mentioned right before this passage, in Revelation 12:5‐6. However, Jesus says “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven” before his ascension (Luke 10:18). He may have been referring to an earlier battle, with Revelation 12:7‐9 referring to a later one. In any case, the history of angels and demons is not strongly in view in the Bible, but is assumed. 4 As discussed in D. Snoke, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, (Baker, 200x), the same word in Hebrew is sometimes translated as “earth” and sometimes “land.” The word is as generic as the English word “land.” attitude change? Also, there are problems of timing. In Gen 4:16‐17, Cain goes away from the Adam and Eve, far away in the land of Nod, and then takes a wife. It is possible to imagine that he took his wife with him, but this would imply that he did not “know” his wife until after he got to Nod. It is also hard to imagine that Cain was so forward thinking that he anticipated numerous children of Adam and Eve pursuing him, even though they not had been born yet. Furthermore, Cain fears being driven “away from the land” (Genesis 4:14) where Adam and Eve lived. Would he not rather fear staying close to Adam and Eve, where their children would be, rather than going away from them where no one lived? Not only that, but the birth of Seth occurs after this story, in Genesis 4:25‐26, and Seth is viewed as a direct replacement for Abel. No other children are in view between Abel and Seth. Of course, this story of Seth’s birth could be another case of going back to amplify an earlier event, as is argued for Genesis 1 and 2, but it is hard to avoid the sense that the birth of Seth follows in sequence after the story of Cain. It is possible to explain away these problems, but the most natural reading of Genesis 4 is to take it that there are other people around besides the children of Eve when Cain kills Abel and is driven away. One could take these as another species, such as Neanderthals, as discussed above, although this would imply that the children of Adam and Eve were required to marry another species. They would essentially be animals, and the law of Moses forbids lying with animals.5 One last difficulty for this option is the mystery of the improper mixed marriages in Genesis 6:1‐4. Some have taken the “sons of God” to be angels (or demons) who married humans, but this contradicts the teaching of Jesus that angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25). In addition, there are numerous problems with imagining spiritual beings marrying flesh and blood humans and having offspring. The support for this view comes form the use of the term “sons of God” to refer to angels in the book of Job (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7). But in Deuteronomy 32:8 the same term is used to refer to the nations outside Israel,6 and Deuteronomy is more connected to Genesis than Job. The interpretation is therefore more natural that the daughters of Adam are marrying someone outside their community they should not marry. But if everyone is a son of Adam, who are these other outsiders? One can suppose they were of the line of Cain, no longer counted as a son of Adam, but that is also speculation. Taking Adam and Eve as the first humans, we have three options for their date.

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